A movie, some education and a glass of wine

There are a couple of interesting articles in today's Jordan Times, and a couple of other things that I thought I would mention. The newspaper has a small section, what's on, in which one can find out some of the things going on in Amman: exhibitions, markets, theater representations... and today it mentions the Scandinavian Film Festival. Okay, it is not a huge festival - only 3 movies - but on the 31st they show Babette's Feast. It is a long and slow movie about the life of 2 elderly sisters and their French housekeeper, living in a small Protestant community in rural Denmark during the 19th century. Long and slow - but funny, interesting and so attaching. You can read more about the plot here. 

Then, this one made me smile, how should I put it? Well I guess that there are some words which are not (yet?) acceptable in my Jordanian newspaper. So "Sexual Education Module" becomes "a Family Health Training Manual". You see, that's cute! It is a small correction to an article from yesterday's paper. The power of words, I tell you. Of course you have to call a cat a cat, and sexual education is... sexual education. However,  I also think that sometimes you can present things a bit nicer and when as here there is religion involved in the same sentence, "family health" is much more appropriate.

On to some bigger articles now. First, Jordanian wines. There is an article about Saint Georges wines, the owner Omar Zumot has decided he wants to put Jordan on the wine world map. There is no reason why not. Wine had been grown in Jordan for centuries, the oldest wine making history in the world? It is naturally convenient to grow wine in Jordan; this country has a great soil and an ideal climate, with a coldish and wet winter and a sunny, completely dry summer. The interesting thing is, that his wine is organic. Because there is no humidity in the summer months, there is no growth of fungus, small spiders or insects and Zumot can rely on birds doing the pest work - I like that! It is explained that the wines are not exported to the EU yet, let's hope that the needed entity to validate the wines will make it's appearance soon in Jordan.

The last one links to another post I am working on and is regarding the Dana Biosphere Reserve. You may, or may not know, that Jordan has quite a few Nature Reserves worth a visit, one of them, Dana, is located north of Petra. The idea is to open a new trail going from the reserve to Petra. It will take 3 nights of camping in which one can discover some of the 216 types of birds (many of these are globally threatened), 38 mammals and the 4 bio-geographical zones in which lies the reserve. Did I mention the 833 types of vegetation? I am not so much into camping (well to be honest I have never tried), but this reserve, the largest in Jordan, seems amazing. 


It is week-end tonight. I feel like watching a good movie with a nice glass of red wine, then go to bed and enjoy my book. Bliss!